An edible history of humanity / Tom Standage.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 249-257) and index.

Ingredients of the past -- Part 1: Edible Foundations Of Civilization -- 1: Invention of farming -- 2: Roots of modernity -- Part 2: Food And Social Structure -- 3: Food, wealth, and power -- 4: Follow the food -- Part 3: Global Highways Of Food -- 5: Splinters of paradise -- 6: Seeds of empire -- Part 4: Food, Energy, And Industrialization -- 7: New world, new foods -- 8: Steam engine and the potato -- Part 5: Food As A Weapon -- 9: Fuel of war -- 10: Food fight -- Part 6: Food, Population, And Development -- 11: Feeding the world -- 12: Paradoxes of plenty -- Epilogue: Ingredients of the future.

From the Publisher: From the bestselling author of A History of the World in Six Glasses, this is a riveting history of humanity told through the foods we eat. Throughout history, food has done more than simply provide sustenance; it has acted as a tool of social transformation, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict and economic expansion. And today, in the culmination of a process that has been going on for thousands of years, the foods we choose in the supermarket connect us to global debates about trade, development, and the adoption of new technologies. An Edible History of Humanity is a journey through the uses of food that have helped to shape and transform societies around the world, from prehistory to the present. Drawing on genetics, archaeology, anthropology, ethno-botany and economics, the story of these gastronomic revolutions is a deeply satisfying account of the whole of human history.